


Hakuna Matata

by eternaleponine



Series: Where There Is A Flame [8]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Deleted Scenes, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 20:46:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8860423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: It's a gray, gloomy day but Clarke and Lexa don't want to get stuck inside.  Then Clarke finds out that Lexa has never been to the zoo.





	

Clarke gave up on actually doing anything with her hair and just twisted it up into a messy bun with the hair elastic wrapped around her wrist. "What do we want to do today?" she asked, reaching around Lexa to the hair brush on her dresser, and then nudging her over to her desk chair and sitting her down so that she could brush out the tangled waves. 

Lexa's eyes closed and she sighed, a smile curving her lips. Clarke had learned from Anya that a very easy way to calm Lexa was to brush her hair (not that she wasn't calm to begin with, but she figured it didn't hurt to keep the good feelings going), and anyway, she liked the opportunity to play with it. 

"I have no idea," Lexa said. "It's supposed to be gray and gloomy all day, but I don't feel like staying inside."

"Neither do I," Clarke said. "Is it actually supposed to rain?"

Lexa stretched to reach her phone where it had been tossed on the bed and brought up the weather app. "It says there's a 40% chance of precipitation."

"So maybe," Clarke said, "shading into hopefully not. Temperature-wise?"

"Cool but not cold," Lexa said. "Hoodie weather."

"Hmm..." She mentally ran through the list of things to do in the area that were free or cheap, because she was a little bit on the broke side until her monthly allowance hit her account (and slightly embarrassed that she was relying on money from her mom to get her through, even though technically it was from her college fund), but all she could come up with were museums, which would get them up and moving, but they would still be indoors, potentially with a bunch of other people who had had the same idea as to how to pass a somewhat dismal day.

Then it occurred to her – if everyone else was headed _indoors_ , that might actually make it a good day to visit... "The zoo," she announced. "What do you think?"

"The zoo?" Lexa sounded skeptical. 

"Yes!" Clarke said. "Why not?"

"Aren't zoos depressing?" Lexa asked. "A bunch of animals in cages doesn't exactly sound like a good time."

Clarke wrinkled her nose, even though Lexa couldn't see it. "Zoos aren't like that anymore," she said. "Not good ones, anyway. They try to create at least somewhat natural habitats for animals, give them enrichment to keep them from getting bored... and they do a lot toward conservation efforts, and protecting endangered species." She twisted an elastic around the braid she'd just woven into Lexa's hair. "Have you never been to the zoo?"

" _The_ zoo, or _a_ zoo?" Lexa asked.

"Either," Clarke said.

"No."

She laughed. "If the answer is no to both, why ask?"

Lexa tipped her head back and grinned. "To drive you crazy."

"Well mission accomplished," Clarke said, leaning over to kiss her awkwardly upside-down. "Goof."

"You love it," Lexa said. "Don't lie."

"Of course I do," Clarke said. "So zoo?"

"Zoo," Lexa agreed, although she still seemed slightly dubious. They finished getting dressed and took Clarke's car, because she knew where they were going. It didn't take long to get there, and Clarke was pleased to see that although the parking lot wasn't empty, there were far fewer cars than she would have expected on a weekend with a better forecast. 

They went through the gates and grabbed a map to guide them, although it really seemed easiest to just head in a direction and follow the paths around, since they weren't on a quest to find one particular thing. There were signs everywhere that would guide them back if they got too far off the trail as well. 

Immediately upon entering, they came to the Kids' Farm, and Clarke dragged Lexa inside. They were almost immediately mobbed by goats, and Lexa backed herself up against the fence in an effort to escape the onslaught. "What the—"

"Petting zoo!" Clarke said. "You can feed them."

"If you want to lose a finger, maybe," Lexa grumbled. "How is this not just a farm?"

"We haven't gotten to the good stuff yet," Clarke said. "Are you going to be a curmudgeon all day?"

"No," Lexa said. "Only when I'm having my feet stepped on by pointy cloven hooves."

Clarke laughed. "Okay, okay, fine. We can always come back later if you change your mind." 

"Somehow, I doubt it," Lexa said. She picked up her foot as they exited back out of the exhibit and looked at the bottom of her sneaker. "I think I stepped in poop."

"Charming," Clarke said. "Walk it off."

"That's what you say about a strained hamstring, not animal doo," Lexa told her.

"I think it applies either way." Clarke looked up at the signs. "Here, big cats are this way. Lions and tigers and... okay bears are in the opposite direction. Can't win 'em all." She grinned.

"Dork," Lexa said, but she took the hand that Clarke offered and followed her down the path. She didn't let go as they moved from one exhibit the next, seeing the lions and tigers, and also a bobcat and a caracal. She even kept hold of it as she pointed to things, dragging Clarke's hand along with her own, and every time she did, Clarke melted a little inside. 

If it was possible to fall in love with someone you were already in love with again, well... she did. Over and over as Lexa's enthusiasm grew. They went through the reptile house, and then moved on the great apes. 

"Is that...?" Lexa pointed – again with their joined hands – and then quickly let them drop so as not to call attention when a family with small children walked past. When Clarke looked, though, it wasn't the fact that they were holding hands that she was trying to avoid having noticed – it was what she was pointing _to_.

"Yup," Clarke said. "Preeeetty sure that's a monkey boner."

"And moving on!" Lexa said, holding up her free hand like a tour guide motioning for her group to follow, heading toward a little glassed in alcove. She moved to read one of the signs that talked about the species while Clarke peered through the glass. She watched as one of the gorillas made its way over, standing and putting its hands on the glass.

"Lexa..." Clarke said quietly, and she turned... and yelped, stumbling back a step as she found herself face-to-face with a gorilla, who also toppled backward, either equally startled or imitating Lexa, she wasn't sure. 

"Holy shit!" Lexa gasped, putting her hands to her face as Clarke doubled over laughing. "You could have warned me!"

Clarke just wheezed, unable to respond until she finally managed to catch a gasping breath. "Oh I wish I had that on video. I really, really wish I had that on video."

Lexa flipped her off, then wrapped her arms around her, playfully wrestling. "I'm really, really glad you don't," she said. "Jerk." 

They kept walking, past Mongolian wild horses that neither of them ventured to guess as the pronunciation of the name of, and elephants and bison and cheetahs, who sadly did not seem to be in the mood to go for a run. Past them was the warthogs, and Lexa stopped, her mouth twitching.

"And oh, the shame!" she announced, and then looked at Clarke, wide-eyed and expectant, and Clarke wracked her brain for what she might be looking for before it clicked.

"She was ashamed!" she answered.

"Thought of changing my name!"

"What's in a name?"

"And I got downhearted—"

"How did ya feel?"

"Every time that I—"

"Lexa, not in front of the kids."

"Oh, sorry."

They both laughed, and then laughed harder when a little girl and her father walked past, staring at them. The girl managed to break her father's grip on her and ran back toward them. "Are you married?" she asked, only it sounded more like 'mawwied'. 

Clarke blinked, looked at Lexa, who was equally gobsmacked. 

"My friend Sarah at school has two moms and they got married and she got to be the flower girl," the little girl said. 

"Oh," Clarke said. "Well, I'm very happy for Sarah and her moms." She smiled down at her. "And I like your hat."

"Me too!" the little girl told her, reaching up to touch the fuzzy ears that poked out of the top. It had the face of a panda. 

"Say thank you, honey," her father prompted.

"Thank you," the girl said.

"Sorry about that," he said to them. "Kids..."

"I'll take that over people telling us we ought to be ashamed of ourselves any day," Lexa said. 

He frowned. "Someone said that to you? Here?"

"No, not here," she replied. "But anyway, Hakuna Matata."

He smiled. "You have a good day."

"You too." 

He took off after the little girl, who had already lost interest in them and moved on to the next thing. 

Clarke pulled Lexa into a hug and kissed her softly, not caring who saw or what they had to say about it. "You're amazing," she said. "You know that, right?"

"I'm rubber and you're glue," Lexa replied. 

Clarke rolled her eyes and kissed her again. "Come on. There's still plenty to see."

They spent a long time watching the otters and the red pandas as they played, with the red panda apparently deciding to practice its dance moves for them. "I want one," Lexa said. "It's so cute."

_You're so cute,_ Clarke thought, but didn't say it, because Lexa had already proved she didn't know how to take a compliment. She slid her fingers through Lexa's again as they moved on to the panda enclosure, which had more of a crowd than anywhere else they'd been, probably in large part due to the fact that the newest cub was on display, and everyone was (unsurprisingly) charmed. 

After the pandas, they went down the American trail, where there were wolves and seals and apparently crows (because you couldn't just see those flying around anywhere and needed to come to the zoo?). 

There were strange sounds coming from the anteater enclosure when they passed it, and Clarke reached up to put her hand over Lexa's eyes when she realized the cause. "You've already been traumatized enough," she told her. "Who knew anteaters were exhibitionists?"

"Oh for f—" Lexa said, laughing. She peeled Clarke's hand away... and then immediately slapped it back in place. "Lead on," she said. 

The fact that Lexa actually trusted Clarke to lead her, blind, through a public place, surprised her more than a little. Not that she didn't think that Lexa trusted her... but trusting someone emotionally and trusting them to actually safeguard your physical well-being were two very different things. But she allowed herself to be guided over to the exhibit where the Andean bear (also called a spectacled bear) lived before blinking her eyes open again. 

"Are you sure it's safe?" she asked suspiciously. 

"I'm sure," Clarke said. The bear didn't seem to be doing anything at all, and finally they moved on to the last exhibit before they got back to where they'd come in, which seemed to be mostly amphibians from the Amazon, with the exception of a two-toed sloth that was just hanging there... because that's what sloths did.

Before heading out, Clarke pulled Lexa into the gift shop. She wanted _something_ to remember this day by. She looked around to see if there was anything intended to commemorate a baby's first trip to the zoo, but apparently that wasn't a thing... and Lexa probably wouldn't have found it nearly as funny as she did. 

While Lexa was looking at the postcards, Clarke wandered around, finally landing in the area where all of the plush toys were. She picked one up and grinned, then came up behind Lexa. "Hey Lexa," she said.

Lexa turned... and found herself face-to-face with a gorilla again. 

And yelped again.

"I am going to _kill_ you," she growled, and Clarke had to scramble back.

"It's a lover, not a fighter!" she protested, holding out the gorilla's arms to Lexa. "It just wants a hug!"

Lexa scowled, but she let Clarke wrap the stuffed gorilla's arms around her neck. It wasn't one of the ones that had Velcro to hold them together, so she just had to wrap her arms around along with them to hold them in place. 

"It's coming home with us," Clarke decided. 

"Is it?" Lexa asked. "Because right now I'm not sure _you_ are coming home with _us_." She squeezed the gorilla.

"I didn't really scare you, did I?" Clarke asked, realizing then that maybe it hadn't been as funny as she'd thought. 

"You did," Lexa said, "but not that badly." She smiled a bit crookedly. "If you'd _really_ scared me, you would probably be on the floor."

"Right," Clarke said, realizing then just how dumb an idea it was to try to play a prank like that on someone with more than half a lifetime's worth of martial arts training. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Lexa said. "I love you anyway."

"I love you too." Clarke took the gorilla to the register and paid for it with her emergency credit card. She wasn't sure how she was going to explain that a stuffed gorilla was _absolutely_ an emergency to her mom, but she figured if she just told her to take it out of her allowance it would be fine. 

Lexa carried the gorilla out to the car... and then buckled it into the back seat. She leaned over and kissed Clarke. "Thank you," she said. 

"For the gorilla?" Clarke asked.

"For this," Lexa said. "This was fun. My dad never..." She sighed. "Just thank you."

"You're welcome," Clarke said. "I mean, it's not Disney World, but..."

"Baby steps," Lexa answered. 

"Exactly. Baby steps." She took Lexa's hand and laced their fingers together again, glad that her car was an automatic so there was practically no need to let go the whole way home.

**Author's Note:**

> For KellyDeaux, who asked for Clarke introducing Lexa to something that she missed out on during her childhood.


End file.
